1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadcast receiving device. More specifically, the present invention relates to a broadcast receiving device that receives television broadcasts and outputs the television broadcasts to a monitor.
2. Background Information
The number of television channels has been increasing in recent years as digital broadcasts have become more popular. A multi-screen display technology has been proposed to display a plurality of programs simultaneously on a single monitor provided to a broadcast receiving device. It is difficult to distinguish audio channels if the audio channels from the plurality of programs are outputted at the same time. Therefore, an audio channel from one of the plurality of programs being displayed in multi-screen format is selected for output. For instance, when one of the plurality of programs is displayed larger on a main screen in the monitor, and another program is displayed on a subscreen in the monitor, just the audio channel from the program displayed on the main screen is outputted, but not the audio channel from the program displayed on the subscreen.
Viewers usually focus their attention on the main screen in the multi-screen display. Thus, the viewers do not notice if the program displayed on the subscreen shows a decisive scene, an exciting scene, or the like (hereinafter referred to as a noteworthy scene). Therefore, the viewers may end up missing the noteworthy scene.
With a conventional broadcast receiving device, either audio of the program displayed on the main screen or audio of the program displayed on the subscreen is selected for output to a speaker based on a state of the audio of the subscreen (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2006-67205, for example).
With the conventional broadcast receiving device, the audio of the subscreen is subjected to spectrum analysis. When a frequency component corresponding to cheering exceeds a preset level, the audio of the subscreen is outputted instead of the audio of the program displayed on the main screen. As a result, when the noteworthy scene appears on the program displayed on the subscreen, missing the noteworthy scene is prevented.
However, with the conventional broadcast receiving device, there is a possibility that the audio of the main screen is switched to the audio of the subscreen even though there is a noteworthy scene on the program displayed on the main screen. Therefore, there are instances that the audio outputted to the speaker is not switched at a proper timing. Also, if a time period for the spectrum analysis is not long enough, then there is a risk that the audio of the main screen is switched to the audio of the subscreen even though there is no noteworthy scene on the program displayed on the subscreen. Conversely, if the time period for the spectrum analysis is performed is too long, there is a risk that the audio of the main screen is not switched to the audio of the subscreen even though there is a noteworthy scene on the program displayed on the subscreen.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved television receiving device. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.